Irish McCalla - Modelling Page 2

MODELLING

Page 2 - Discovery

Irish began modelling seriously after complaining to her oldest brother, Bill, that the girls at the beach and at parties were always making remarks about her figure. The comments were always whispered loud enough for her to hear. She also said that the boys couldn't stop staring at her, despite the fact that she was still wearing a one-piece while many girls had started wearing bikinis. When asked if she should pose for girlie magazines Bill's advice was that she did need the money, so why not make them pay to stare. "Just don't do anything to embarrass the rest of the family." was his only advice (Glamour Girls). Irish soon began supplementing her income with some modelling work and also began living part-time at Malibu, sharing an apartment with two other models (Tease). She become acquainted with the "California Kids", as she called them, who included Johnny Sheffield, Gardner McKay and Ben Chapman (Creature From the Black Lagoon), who she would become much closer to (see Page 7: First Husband). They were responsible for teaching her how to paddle a board and to skin-dive.

One frequently encountered myth about Irish's discovery as a model claims that she was innocently diving for lobsters at Malibu and was approached by a photographer while she was wearing her swimsuit and diving gear. She struck some poses for him and one of the photos, possibly the one at left, was published in New York during a blizzard with the tag line like, "Here's what they're doing in California." Black and Feret's book on Irish, however, claims that a friend of a friend (possibly one of the models she was living with) recommended Irish to an older photographer named Bob Wallace because he was looking for an athletic girl to go skin-diving for a beach shoot. The second part of the story, about its publication during a NY blizzard, is true. When Wallace died suddenly from a heart attack his widow sold all of his photos to the Globe Photos syndicate, who selected the lobster photo of Irish for publication in New York on New Years Day 1950 ("One cold day in New York, they published this picture of me in a bikini, holding a lobster, which is not one of my favourite photos. In those days a bikini was not so brief.") (Femme Fatales)

A different version of the commencement of Irish's modelling career, published in a lot of glamour magazines at the time, claimed that she was walking along the beach, just minding her own business, when a group of naval officers asked her to accept the title

of "Miss Navy Day", which resulted in a modelling career and some TV guest appearances (TV Radio Mirror). Irish was definitely entering some beauty contests at the time (see Page 6: Nudity) and she may have won this title, but it was the photos published by Globe that created all of the excitement. The newspaper was deluged with mail and the Globe Syndicate embarked on a search to find her. Wallace had written her name on the photo but they didn't know how where she came from. It took them 3 months to tracked her down but they eventually found her through a lifeguard who recognised the photo. Irish has also said that by this time she had a phone connected and they found her by just looking her up in the phone book.

Globe offered Irish a contract, but she thought the idea was silly. ("I'd been asked to pose for a lot of guys, but I thought they were just trying to pick me up - and I was real touchy about that kind of thing.") Irish was offered $100 a month when not modelling and $10 an hour when she was, which was about three times a month ("It was the only time they made such an arrangement with a model."). Her only stipulation was that she had photo approval because she felt that sometimes they showed too much. She was still working at the McDonnell Douglas factory but had quit her full-time waitressing job in favour of a part-time job at an ice cream parlour ("...both for extra money and for the ice cream hot fudge sundaes we were allowed there."). This allowed her to spend her days at the beach. (Glamour Girls). Irish's national modelling debut was the August 1950 issue of Night and Day magazine, which described her as "still a comparative unknown". Black and Feret report that the agency was astounded that within only a month Irish was on the cover of seven of the top ten men's magazines.

MODELLING INTRO PAGE

TOP OF PAGE

PAGE 3 - SUCCESS

IRISH McCALLA MAGAZINE GALLERIES
To see what all of the fuss was about and the reason for her popularity, click on the image at right to explore an extensive collection of glamour and television magazines that Irish McCalla appeared in between 1950 and 2008.

SOURCES
• Glamour Girls: Then and Now magazine, Premiere issue Mar-Apr 94
• Tease magazine No. 3, 1995
• TV's Original Sheena - Irish McCalla by Bill Black & Bill Feret, Paragon Publications 1992
• Femme Fatales magazine, Jan 99
• TV Radio Mirror, Jul 56
PHOTOS
• The photo of irish holding the lobster is from Eye magazine, Jan 52
• The photo of Irish hunting lobsters from Pace magazine, Aug 50, was pilfered from an eBay auction item
• The collage of magazine images was created from magazines in my personal collection

IRISH BIOGRAPHY INTRO

SHEENA INTRO

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